Quotes from Marcus Tullius Cicero

Advice is judged by results, not by intentions.

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself.

We should be as careful of our words as of our actions.

I cannot find a faithful message-bearer, " he wrote to his friend, the scholar Atticus. "How few are they who are able to carry a rather weighty letter without lightening it by reading.

Courage is virtue which champions the cause of right.

It shows a brave and resolute spirit not to be agitated in exciting circumstances.

Death approaches, which is always impending like the stone over Tantalus: then comes superstition with which he who is imbued can never have peace of mind.

Like associates with like.

Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

I add this, that rational ability without education has oftener raised man to glory and virtue, than education without natural ability.

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.

Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.

The rule of friendship means there should be mutual sympathy between them, each supplying what the other lacks and trying to benefit the other, always using friendly and sincere words.

Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.

For how many things, which for our own sake we should never do, do we perform for the sake of our friends.

Let your desires be ruled by reason.

Let reason govern desire.

The thirst of desire is never filled, nor fully satisfied.

They are eloquent who can speak low things acutely, and of great things with dignity, and of moderate things with temper.

What is dignity without honesty?

Leisure with dignity.

It is the stain and disgrace of the age to envy virtue, and to be anxious to crush the very flower of dignity.

The purpose of education is to free the student from the tyranny of the present.

Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.